Who doesn’t love a one-pot dinner? Instant Pot butternut squash & sausage pasta is simple and full of delicious flavors that will warm you on a cool night! Scroll down for video.

Oh hey, have I mentioned that I have a little obsession with my Instant Pot (<–affiliate link)? Okay, good. I’m just making sure that you all know about this awesome countertop appliance that feeds us at least once a week, usually more.

Anyway, this post is not really to harp on and on about how much I love the Instant Pot. It’s to share this Instant Pot butternut squash & sausage pasta with you. These days I just about always cook my pasta in the Instant Pot or using a one-pot method. When a friend told me about a recipe from The Chew that had pasta, cheese, sausage, and butternut squash, I knew I had to adapt it for the Instant Pot.
I don’t love Italian sausage but if you do, feel free to use it here. That’s what was in the original recipe. I used chicken and apple sausage; I like the sweetness and the warm spices. A little cottage cheese or ricotta stirred in gives it extra creaminess, and instead of wrestling with a whole butternut squash on a weeknight I just dump in a bag of frozen, cubed butternut squash.

Press the sauté on the front of the Instant Pot. When the Instant Pot gets hot, add the olive oil. When the olive oil shimmers, add the onion and cook until beginning to turn translucent. Add the sausage and cook until lightly browned.

Add the pasta to the Instant Pot. Add just enough water to cover the pasta/sausage mixture. Stir to combine. Cover with the lid and set the vent to "sealing". Press the manual button then use the - button to set the time to 4 minutes.

When the cook time is complete, press the off button and turn the vent back to venting. Remove the lid and add the cottage cheese, mozzarella, and butternut squash and stir to combine. Press the sauté button and cook, stirring frequently, until the squash is warm.

Add the sage and salt to taste. Stir to combine and serve immediately.

This cheesy chili mac hardly requires any effort. It’s made in your pressure cooker or Instant Pot, so it’s ready in 45 minutes, mostly hands-off! Scroll down for video.
I have recently discovered the joys of the Instant Pot (<–affiliate link). It’s seriously like the best thing ever, you guys. I’ve talked about it before, but I honestly just can’t say enough about how cool this little gadget is. It’s a slow cooker, pressure cooker, steamer, sauté pot, rice cooker…it’s the best. I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot of use over the summer, because it allows me to cook pretty much anything without heating up my kitchen. Love.It.
I picked up a book at McKay’s recently called Pressure Cooker Perfection(<–affiliate link) from none other than my favorites at America’s Test Kitchen. Um, I had no idea that you could cook pasta right in the sauce in your pressure cooker. Yesssssssss. This book is a tiny little pressure cooker bible, and I’m in love.
One of the recipes in Pressure Cooker Perfection is a recipe for Tex-Mex Chili Mac. Honestly, chili mac isn’t something that my mom ever made, so it really never caught my attention until I saw an episode of Cook’s Country (what else??) recently where Christopher Kimball was talking about Tex-Mex and he casually mentioned chili mac. Suddenly I was obsessed and had to make it. I was pretty happy when I saw this recipe in the pressure cooker book.
My cheesy chili mac is based on the recipe from the book, but I took some liberties to make it little fresher and more colorful. The important thing is that it is: quick, easy, and delicious. It takes about 15 minutes of hands-on work, including chopping the vegetables, sautéing everything in the pot, and grating the cheese. The pasta in this cheesy chili mac comes out perfectly cooked without any boiling or draining water. Perfection, indeed.

Preheat the pressure cooker over medium heat (or use the sauté setting on the Instant Pot). Heat the oil until shimmering. Sauté the onion and red pepper until softened, then add the garlic and jalapeño and sauté until fragrant.

Add the meat and cook until browned, breaking it up with a wooden spoon while cooking. Stir in the chili powder and cayenne pepper (if using). Add the water, tomatoes, and pasta.

In a regular pressure cooker: bring to high pressure over medium-high heat then reduce heat to medium-low and cook for five minutes. Quick release the pressure.

In an Instant Pot, set to bean/chili and set time for five minutes. At the end of the cook time, turn the Instant Pot off and quick release the pressure.

Stir in the corn and the cilantro. The residual heat from the pot should thaw the corn. Salt and pepper to taste then stir in the cheese. Serve immediately, topped with sour cream and avocado if desired.

This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click through and make a purchase on Amazon, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. For more information, please see my disclosures. Thank you for supporting my blog!

This classic chicken pot pie is exceedingly simple but totally from scratch. It is the perfect cool weather comfort food! Scroll down for video.

Who doesn’t love the comfort of a classic chicken pot pie? When I was a kid, my mom’s homemade chicken pot pie with a biscuity-type topping was one of my favorite things that she made. I also really, really loved the frozen Swanson chicken pot pies that had about 1 million calories apiece. For several years I made it with refrigerated pie crust, Veg-All, canned chicken, and cream of chicken soup. I tell you, for a college student, that’s good eating.

These days, of course, my classic chicken pot pie is a little more involved…but still pretty dang easy and always crazy comforting. I love to make a little creamy chicken and white wine sauce, throw in whatever vegetables I have, and wrap this all up in cream cheese pie crust. Could it be more perfect for a cool fall day? Oh, and obviously, this chicken pot pie would also be perfect for your Thanksgiving turkey leftovers.

Preheat the oven to 350?. Place the potatoes and carrots in a small sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and add a teaspoon of salt. Boil until cooked through then drain.

Roll half of the pie crust out into a 10-12 inch circle and press into a 9-inch pie pan or a deep dish tart pan (my favorite way to make any pie these days). Place in the refrigerator until ready to fill.

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Place the onions and celery into the pan and cook until softened. Add the mushrooms and cook until softened. Sprinkle with the flour. Stir and cook for one minute.

Add the white wine and stir. Cook until thickened. Add the chicken broth and the milk, half and half, or cream. Stir to combine and cook until thickened.

Add the chicken and stir to combine. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bottom pie crust from the refrigerator and pour the chicken pot pie mixture in.

Roll the top pie crust into a 10-12 inch circle and lay on top of the pie. Seal the edges and discard the excess. Cut 4 vents into the top crust. Bake for 25-30 minutes then, if desired, brown the top under the broiler.

Remove the pie from the oven and allow to stand for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Garlic butter panko-crusted cod is ready from start to finish in less than half an hour, and it’s so easy and delicious! No frying required. (Scroll down for video.)

Fish is really something that I don’t cook enough, but I have a confession to make: I prefer my fish crispy. If garlic is involved, even better. Plus, I hate frying, so oven-frying is my jam. Garlic butter panko-crusted cod checks off all of those boxes…plus butter.

I never think that there is enough garlic in anything, so I put 4 cloves of garlic in this. There’s quite a bit of butter too, but remember: we aren’t frying, so I needed the butter to crisp up the panko. You really don’t end up getting that much of it on your fish. So worth it.
This literally comes together in less than ten minutes, and if you have a nice, hot pan (just preheat it in the oven), your fish will get crispy in less than 15 (I find that panko doesn’t get very brown when you oven fry, and I was afraid if I let it get brown the fish would be way overcooked). I served this panko-crusted cod with oven-fried potato wedges and homemade tartar sauce, and it was 💯.

Place the egg in a wide, shallow bowl and the panko in another wide, shallow bowl. Add salt and pepper to each bowl and whisk to combine. Add the garlic and butter to the panko and stir until all of the bread crumbs are coated with butter.

Dip each piece of fish in egg then in the panko until completely coated. Place on the preheated baking sheet and bake, turning once, until crispy and just beginning to brown, about 12-15 minutes.

If desired, sprinkle with parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, and tartar sauce.

One-pot chicken Milano is a restaurant copycat with chicken, pasta, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes in a creamy herb sauce. Minimal dishwashing required! Scroll down for video.

People are always shocked when they find out that I do occasionally eat at chain restaurants. With all the great locally-owned restaurants around here, I try not to make it a super-regular event, but I definitely don’t turn my nose up at chain restaurants. Philip and I used to love Romano’s Macaroni Grill, which no longer has a location here in Chattanooga (but actually, we only ate at that one once – we used to go to the one at Opry Mills every time we went there).

When we went there I would always order chicken Milano – chicken, bowtie pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, and mushrooms in a creamy herb sauce. I used to make it at home using a recipe that I had found that incorporated a packaged herb blend. I haven’t made that in years, and chicken Milano is no longer on Macaroni Grill’s menu. I thought about it recently, though, and decided that I had to have it.
It seemed like a perfect dish to turn into a one-pot recipe. I mean, why on earth would you need to use more than one pot to sauté chicken and mushrooms and cook some pasta? To me, one-pot dishes means that, even if you do a little cooking in stages, everything cooks together in the same pot at some point so that all the flavors meld perfectly. There’s no need to take the chicken and mushrooms out of the pot to boil the pasta in water then fool with draining it. When you use just a little bit of liquid, the pasta soaks all of the liquid up and achieves a perfect al denté consistency, while releasing some of its starch to thicken up the liquid that remains.

This tastes just like the chicken Milano that I remember, or maybe even better. We ate leftovers for dinner a couple of nights later and it made a perfect Thermos meal for my lunch later in the week.

1 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, thinly sliced (you can use regular, i.e. not oil-packed, but if you do, add the sun-dried tomatoes when you add the pasta)

salt and pepper to taste

Grated Parmesan cheese for topping

chopped fresh Italian parsley for topping (optional)

Instructions

Set a 6- or 8-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the butter and one tablespoon of the olive oil. Allow the butter to melt. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until no pink remains on the outside of the chicken. Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken from the pan.

Add the other tablespoon of olive oil. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook until softened, then add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the liquid and the pasta, then add the Italian seasoning and stir to combine. Add the chicken back to the pan and stir again.

Bring the liquid to a boil then reduce the heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently to keep the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pot, until the pasta is al denté and the liquid is thickened, about 15 minutes. The chicken should be cooked through. Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste.

This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. For more information, please see my disclosures. Thank you for supporting my blog!